Discovery, Capitalism, and Distributive Justice makes Kirzner's case for the idea that entrepreneurial profit is both essential for an economy and profoundly just. Asserting that the problem with standard criticism of capitalist income distribution is a failure to see capitalism as a "discovery procedure," Kirzner argues that production and subsequent profit are neither automatic nor guaranteed. This important contribution to the larger debate of the capitalist system clarifies core economic issues, so that the positive science of economics can enlighten our understanding of justice in capitalist distribution. Successful production always results from the discovery of an opportunity to obtain new gains from trade, i.e., the discovery of entrepreneurial profit. Kirzner shows that profit is the just and fair possession of its discoverer. This is what he calls the "finders-keepers" rule: "The finders-keepers rule asserts that an unowned object becomes the justly owned property of the first person who, discovering its availability and its potential value, takes possession of it." Richard Ebeling reviewed the work in 1989, saying, "the heart of Professor Kirzner's argument is that every discovery of a new opportunity is the appropriation of that which had not existed before a human mind had seen the potential in that object." Kirzner's monograph is complemented here by three important articles on the subject of economic justice, a critique of Kirzner's theory, and a reply from Kirzner to that critique. Kirzner's finders-keepers rule of entrepreneurial profit and market distribution stands as one of the foremost defenses of the distribution of income and profit in the free-enterprise system. Israel M. Kirzner is a leading economist in the Austrian School and Professor Emeritus of Economics at New York University. Peter J. Boettke is University Professor of Economics and Philosophy at George Mason University and the BB&T Professor for the Study of Capitalism at the Mercatus Center. His publications include Living Economics, The Handbook of Contemporary Austrian Economics, and The Elgar Companion to Austrian Economics. He has been the editor of The Review of Austrian Economics since 1998. Frédéric Sautet is Associate Professor at The Catholic University of America, School of Business and Economics. He is a specialist in Austrian market process theory and teaches entrepreneurship studies. He has taught at George Mason University of Paris Dauphine. He is the author of An Entrepreneurial Theory of the Firm and has published widely on entrepreneurship.

Stressing verbal logic rather than mathematics, Israel M. Kirzner provides at once a thorough critique of contemporary price theory, an essay on the theory of entrepreneurship, and an essay on the theory of competition. Competition and Entrepreneurship offers a new appraisal of quality competition, of selling effort, and of the fundamental weaknesses of contemporary welfare economics. Kirzner's book establishes a theory of the market and the price system which differs from orthodox price theory. He sees orthodox price theory as explaining the configuration of prices and quantities that satisfied the conditions for equilibrium. Mr. Kirzner argues that "it is more useful to look to price theory to help understand how the decisions of individual participants in the market interact to generate the market forces which compel changes in prices, outputs, and methods of production and in the allocation of resources." Although Competition and Entrepreneurship is primarily concerned with the operation of the market economy, Kirzner's insights can be applied to crucial aspects of centrally planned economic systems as well. In the analysis of these processes, Kirzner clearly shows that the rediscovery of the entrepreneur must emerge as a step of major importance.

More than ten years after the worst crisis since the Great Depression, the financial sector is thriving. But something is deeply wrong. Taxpayers bore the burden of bailing out “too big to fail” banks, but got nothing in return. Inequality has soared, and a populist backlash against elites has shaken the foundations of our political order. Meanwhile, financial capitalism seems more entrenched than ever. What is the left to do? Justice Is an Option uses those problems—and the framework of finance that created them—to reimagine historical justice. Robert Meister returns to the spirit of Marx to diagnose our current age of finance. Instead of closing our eyes to the political and economic realities of our era, we need to grapple with them head-on. Meister does just that, asking whether the very tools of finance that have created our vastly unequal world could instead be made to serve justice and equality. Meister here formulates nothing less than a democratic financial theory for the twenty-first century—one that is equally conversant in political philosophy, Marxism, and contemporary politics. Justice Is an Option is a radical, invigorating first page of a new—and sorely needed—leftist playbook.

Israel Kirzner's outstanding book on price theory is back in print. It is been very difficult to obtain it for decades, even though it is surely the best textbook on Austrian price theory ever written. The prose is crystal clear and the organization exceptional. He takes the reader through the foundations of individual action, exchange, utility, demand and supply, production, and the market process itself. Had it been in print, it would have schooled generations in Austrian price theory, and it is surely useful in the classroom today, or for general reading. Not a collection of essays, it is an integrated presentation from top to bottom, written early in Kirzner's post-doctoral career.

When we first invited the group of distinguished scholars represented here to contribute to a new volume on Austrian economics, four themes were stressed: tensions, new directions, selectivity, and criticism. In this brief introduction we will explain why those themes were emphasized and thereby shed light on our intentions and aspirations for the volume. The subtitle "Tensions and New Directions" indicates clearly the intent of the volume desired. If we take the 1871 publication of Carl Menger's Principles of Economics (Grundsiitze der Volkswirthschaftslehre) as mark ing its birth, the Austrian tradition is now well over one hundred years old. The origins of the so-called "Austrian Revival" are more difficult to pinpoint precisely, but many would accept two decades as a reasonable estimate of its lifespan. In any case, since the mid-1970s several collections of articles written by Austrians have been published. The intent of these collections appeared to be to educate, persuade, and inspire various audiences. Uninformed readers needed to be told about the specifics of the Austrian position, to be shown how it differed from and improved upon its rivals. The initiated needed to be reassured that their commitment to a novel program was justified. As such, much of the recent Austrian literature has consisted either of exegetical accounts of the views of past figures, or of critical assessments of the positions of alternative research programs in economics from an Austrian perspective.

The last two decades have seen Marxism's academic renascence. In fields as diverse as law, literary criticism, history, and philosophy, Marxism once again captivates no small number of scholars. In part, this reassessment is driven by the efforts of a group of philosophers and economists to reconstruct Marx from the ground up on a more rigorous basis. The work of these "Analytical Marxists" — who include G.A. Cohen, Jon Elster, and John Roemer — is given a sustained examination and critique in David Gordon's Resurrecting Marx. The charge of the Analytical Marxists that capitalism is inherently exploitative and unjust is the primary subject of Gordon's book. Gordon takes issue with that contention; he argues that the Analytical Marxists' withering criticism of classical Marxism is essentially correct, but that they fail to replace it with a superior theoretical edifice. Gordon also analyzes the Analytical Marxists' reformulation of the Marxian notion of exploitation, the implications of their rejection of the labor theory of value, their differences over what rights people have, and their arguments for the compatibility of markets with socialism.